For It Is Man's Number: kris kristofferson

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Sunday, 23 April 2023

Netflix And Chill: D-Tox AKA Eye See You (2002)

I remember when D-Tox was first released. Some people were appreciative of the fact that Stallone had decided to star in something that was more akin to a slasher movie than his usual action fare. I didn't think that seemed like a good idea though, and I'm sure I remember agreeing with the overall reaction - a bit of a shrug - to something that seemed unlikely to surround a star like Stallone with the usual genre tropes.

Stallone is Jake Malloy, a detective who ends up being stalked by a serial killer. His life is ruined by this mysterious figure, which leads him to a low point in his life, drinking and contemplating eating a bullet from his own gun. His boss gets him checked into a clinic that specialises in helping police and military personnel who have had a hard time of things, to put it mildly, but it's not long until Malloy suspects that the killer has followed him to the facility, which is isolated and surrounded by a lot of snow and ice.

Based on a book, "Jitter Joint", by Howard Swindle, it's not surprising to see that this was the first of only two screenplays, to date, written by Ron L. Brinkerhoff. It's a star vehicle with a cracking ensemble cast that fails to make good use of anyone onscreen. Stallone isn't a good fit for the material, and I will give a huge reward to anyone who can tell me, without using Google or IMDb, all of the main supporting players, and what characters they portray.

Director Jim Gillespie may have made his name with I Know What You Did Last Summer, a similarly bloodless, but more enjoyable, endeavour, but he's just not up to the task of turning the clichéd material here into something more exciting and entertaining. I can see why everyone involved got involved, considering how many times Stallone has worked with familiar material and made something appealing to his sizeable fanbase, but this fails as a cat and mouse movie, and completely fails as a sorta-slasher movie.

As much as I tend to like his performances, Stallone is miscast here. He never feels as if he's doing anything more than picking up a paycheck, and sadly isn't up to the task of making his character as vulnerable and weakened as he needs to be for most of the runtime. I like Charles S. Dutton, who has a couple of decent moments, and Polly Walker works for the poorly-written role she's given (a woman who Malloy connects with at the centre, of course), but the only other people who make any impression are Kris Kristofferson, Robert Patrick, Jeffrey Wright, and Robert Prosky, and all of them stand out thanks to overcoming the horrible script. That may sound all well and good, but this is a film that also has roles for Courtney B. Vance, Stephen Lang, Tom Berenger, Christopher Fulford, Sean Patrick Flanery, and Dina Meyer, and each one of those actors is either horribly wasted or barely even noticeable (aka horribly wasted in a slightly different way).

There’s never enough to care about here, in terms of the characters or the potential thrills, and the end result is a charmless mess that can’t even be saved by star power. Incompetence, or carelessness, behind the camera guarantees constant dullness in front of the camera, both visually and plot-wise, and I would have to warn all but the most die-hard Stallone fans away from this one. Although not a vast improvement, I recommend the similar Whiteout as a better alternative viewing choice.

3/10

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Thursday, 24 November 2022

Noirvember: Payback (1999)

An enjoyable remake of Point Blank (well, a retelling of the tale that Point Blank was based on anyway), featuring Mel Gibson in the lead role of the wronged man out for revenge, and his half of a criminally-acquired stash of money, Payback is a rough ‘n’ tough bit of entertainment that tries to stand out from the crowd by having more ruthless behaviour and bursts of violence than you might expect from a film with such a big star name attached.

Gibson is Porter, a man shot and left for dead after being betrayed during a job that also involved his wife (Deborah Kara Unger) and his best friend (Gregg Henry). Once he starts on his quest to get the money owed to him - not the full amount stolen, just his half - Porter soon finds himself in more and more danger as he has to approach increasingly powerful members of a large criminal organisation.

Directed, for the most part (the production wasn’t exactly smooth sailing), by Brian Helgeland, who also wrote the screenplay, subsequently reworked by Terry Hayes, it’s hard to see why people viewed this as something that needed rescuing. And when I say people I mean “Hollywood suits”. What is here isn’t for everyone, but the same could be said for Point Blank. The fact that the main character is such a shitty person makes it more interesting, especially when you realise that he still has a certain moral code that makes him one of the least shitty people in a world full of much bigger scumbags who inhabit the world he lives in.

Dialogue may not be sharp, and the dour colour palette isn’t exactly a big plus, but plotting is clear, characters are nicely sketched, and Helgeland does some excellent work, knowing what viewers need to see and what they don’t. The unfolding chain of events may be grim, but it’s also somehow still fun . . . right up until it isn’t. And when the fun stops, well, you know the ending is close. You just don’t know if it’s going to be a good or bad ending.

Helgeland helps himself a lot by casting such a great selection of faces. Gibson is great in the main role, doing the kind of tough and unpredictable schtick he could do in his sleep, and Henry has a knack for playing the kind of character you just know could double-cross you at any moment. Unger is sadly underused, but there are two excellent, and very different, turns from Lucy Liu and Maria Bello that more than make up for the brevity of her screentime. There are also roles for David Paymer, Bill Duke, William Devane (one of the most sorely-undercelebrated actors of his generation, in my view), James Coburn, and Kris Kristofferson, as well as one or two others you should recognise. I cannot single out any one of these actors for praise, but that’s because they all get to be equally brilliant at different times in the movie.

I really like this. It’s not as good as the original work it is based on, some better visuals and a more interesting blend of score and soundtrack could have helped (although the opening music from Chris Boardman, playing over the extended credit sequence, is superb), but I think it’s an enjoyably lean, mean, neo-noir that always seems willing to go one step further than viewers might expect. I recommend it.

8/10

Friday, 17 May 2013

Dreamer (2005)

Dreamer is a standard live-action Disney movie that just happens not to actually come from Disney. There isn't one unpredictable moment in it, the music from John Debney keeps reminding viewers that it's all meaningful and life-affirming, and many scenes are shot with an added, warming glow suffusing each frame. Despite these marks against it, I ended up enjoying Dreamer, thanks mainly to a great cast giving decent performances. Sometimes familiarity doesn't breed contempt, sometimes it's just comfortable. Dreamer is just that, a comfort movie. I may not rush to revisit it, but I admit that I enjoyed it while it was on.

Inspired by a true story, Dreamer is all about a horse named Sonador that falls during a big race and sustains what should be a career-ending injury. Horse trainer Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) is angry at the employer (David Morse) who ignored his advice not to race the horse. With his daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), by his side, he ends up leaving the stables with the horse, a reduced cash amount for his work and no job. He also has his assistants, Balon (Luis Guzman) and ex-jockey Manolin (Freddy Rodriguez), and a plan to help Sondaor get well enough so that she can at least be used for breeding, even if she will never race again. But Sonador has a strong spirit, as does young Cale, and looks like she may want to race. That will take hard work and money. The hard work isn't a problem, but the money just might not be available.

Written and directed by John Gatins, Dreamer doesn't really have any major flaws apart from the sentimentality and predictability of it all. It's a nice film, probably too nice for many people to be able to stomach.

The big plus point for the film is the cast. Russell puts in another great performance as a decent everyman, Fanning does her usual good work in another film made during the peak of her "wide-eyed years" and the ever-dependable David Morse is as dependable as ever, despite being saddled with (no pun intended) the role of main villain. Guzman and Rodriguez are both a lot of fun, Elizabeth Shue is fine as Ben's wife/Cale's mother and Kris Kristofferson hangs about to be Ben's grumpy father, who may or may not help out and reforge a bond with his son. And then there's Oded Fehr, appearing about 70 minutes into the movie and getting a few minutes of screentime as a character who may as well have been named "plot device #3".

Cynical people should look for hundreds of films that they will prefer to watch before this one, but anyone who can handle the sugar content should find this moderately enjoyable. It's certainly a decent enough family movie so maybe keep it on standby for any time you may have a 7-12 year old in your home.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreamer-DVD-Dakota-Fanning/dp/B000CSTIIA/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1368707710&sr=1-1&keywords=dreamer

Sunday, 28 August 2011

Fire Down Below (1997)

First of all, let me just say that I was annoyed to find out I had missed Under Siege 2 in my exciting quest to view every Seagal movie in chronological order. That will be the next viewing and then normal service will resume. But for now ........

........

Yes, the child in me went into this movie secretly hoping that it was a film all about Steven Seagal suffering from cystitis but I knew that was unlikely to be the case. Instead, Seagal puts himself once again in the role of environmental warrior (as he did in On Deadly Ground).

The pony-tailed one plays EPA officer Jack Taggart, sent out to a small community that is being poisoned by a local big shot (played by Kris Kristofferson). While he’s there, Jack befriends a local man (Harry Dean Stanton), gets close to a local lady (Marg Helgenberger) and divides the rest of the populace right down the middle. As he starts causing more problems for the greedy polluters he starts putting himself in a lot more danger.

Director Felix Enriquez Alcala has a filmography chock full of TV work but he doesn’t do all that badly with his movie work. It’s a lesser Seagal movie but it’s still quite a distance removed from the worst that the man has starred in.

Jeb Stuart and Philip Morton provide a predictable and uneven script (it’s part ho-down sappiness and part gritty action flick with neither aspect really satisfying for viewers).

Thankfully, the cast has some great actors in there. Seagal isn’t one of them but he is Seagal so that’s that. Kristofferson is enjoyable if a bit too polite in the role of the big, bad polluter. Helgenberger gets by on likeability more than any great characterisation and Harry Dean Stanton is always a welcome addition to any movie but it’s Stephen Lang who steals the show as the brother of Helgenberger’s character.

Watch it, enjoy it and never feel the urge to seek it out again.

5/10